


to build a home

by triple_phoenix



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: After Seattle, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Starting A Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25003678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triple_phoenix/pseuds/triple_phoenix
Summary: "I just—I can’t forgive myself." Ellie shakes her head. "I can't. I can't."“You can.”Something in Ellie stutters. “You don't know that. You don't know the kind of person I am.”But Dina doesn’t push; doesn’t say anything else. She pulls Ellie closer, thumbs away the twin trails of tears streaming down her face. “I’ve always known who you are,” Dina tells her, and Ellie crumbles into her; feeds into her warmth, right into the safety of her arms, and breaks.-after seattle, ellie gathers what remains in her life.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 123





	to build a home

**SEATTLE**

Abby stands above her, the last embers of her rage beginning to simmer beneath her eyes, leaving them broken; her voice pounding through Ellie’s temples, sounding the floor:

_Don’t ever let me see you again._

The theater grows silent. The storm drones over.

When she wakes she forgets for half a moment the fracture in her arm before it flares up, searing through the bone like lightning. She opens her mouth to scream but her own blood chokes her. She tries to kick her legs into motion; flails for a considerable time in panic. Her eyes dart up, to Dina, and she hasn’t moved.

The next moment Ellie brings herself up. She makes to stand on both feet, struggling because the world feels like it’s teetering below her. Groaning, she staggers towards Dina, her entire body screaming. She falls too hard on her knees that they bruise. Ellie's heart races. _Please,_ she thinks, using her good arm to turn Dina’s body towards her. _Please,_ and she cups Dina’s swollen, bloody face in one hand, waiting for a sound, for a shift rising from her chest, for _anything_. Ellie waits, her shoulders wrenched and caved, begging, _please._

Dina lunges forward with her chest, coughing out a sob, and Ellie’s there, cradling Dina closer— _thank God,_ w _e’re okay, we’re okay, it’s over, we’re okay—_ and Ellie can taste the blood and salt in her own mouth, the theater lights almost swirling around them, engulfing, akin to the warmth spreading across the theatre floor.

Tommy was breathing.

They had to cauterize the wound, but the blood—there was so much of it, and God. Jesse was still _lying there,_ so Ellie had to find a tarp, at least before they could do anything—and they couldn’t even fucking _mourn_ him. Not yet. Because Tommy was bleeding out, bleeding out _fast,_ so Dina had to take the helm. Dina, with her shoulder not even sewn up yet, with blood still dripping down her face, was calling for rags and alcohol, and Ellie scrambled to look for an iron rod, used what she had left from the Molotovs, and when she pressed the hot iron against the side of Tommy’s head Ellie cringed away from his barely-conscious screams, sounding so much like Joel’s it was almost torture.

And Dina was anchored. She didn’t flinch. It was admirable, but Ellie should have realized, when they had finished cauterizing the wound and she saw the way Dina faltered for just a fraction of a second under the silence, that she was willing to do anything to keep herself from looking over at the draped tarpaulin and just breaking _._

Ellie says, “We can come back for him,” after it is over.

And Dina looks at her. She pauses. Her eyes shift towards the grave they have dug. It seems too small. And it’s odd, Ellie thinks, because she expected to have felt something—hurt, rage?—but nothing aches. There is only numbness, with no other voice in her head but her own. Dina makes no motion to grieve. She puts the shovel down, feels the outside breeze move into the alcove. The tiger lilies they’ve placed for Jesse stare back up at them.

“Yeah,” Dina tells her, and Ellie catches the lie too quickly. “We could.”

The third night Ellie dreams again. She hears the low ringing in her ears, sees red lights cascading across Nora’s face, and then Abby’s: a contortion of anger and grief; Joel’s blood on Abby’s hands . . . _her_ blood on her hands; a knife lodged in Mel’s throat, bloodied limbs gathering weakly to rest atop her stomach—

Dina tells her she was screaming.

And it shouldn’t be this hard. She shouldn’t be doing this, not now—not when Tommy hasn’t risen, not when Dina’s fever heats up and she can’t stop heaving. Ellie can’t fucking stand this theater anymore, looming over her like a harbor of ghosts, mental images being poked constantly through the back of her skull that Ellie almost wishes Abby could have ended it when she had the fucking chance. . .

But she endures. She forces herself to eat, to sleep, to will her body into getting herbs or whatever medicine she can find in the surrounding buildings they haven’t yet picked clean. And Dina tells her she has to be careful, so careful, because Ellie, your arm is nowhere near healed, and Ellie has to promise her yes, I’ll be careful, but she twists it anyway on the fourth fucking day trying to squeeze through a hole in the wall. And Ellie doesn’t fully realize until then how weak she’s gotten, scrambling pathetically for her broken splint.

She endures again. She drags herself back to the theater; passes out on the couch and wakes the following day, not knowing that Dina had tended to her splint all night. That Dina, with her concussion, went to scavenge on her own. They almost fight about it when Dina returns. But Ellie’s tired, so tired—and Dina is, too—so they acquiesce. They fall into their daily rhythms; talk only if they have to.

Ellie can’t stop thinking about the baby.

She doesn’t sleep.

The relief is insurmountable when Tommy comes to. But then he asks about Abby.

Beside her, Dina squeezes her hand. Ellie hesitates, glances at the gauze covering Tommy’s eye; the sutures pulling the skin over his cheekbone; the way he waits so hungrily for an answer he thinks will gratify him. That’s when something cold and heavy creeps up to Ellie’s neck. Her skin burns.

“She let us go,” Ellie says.

His disbelief is delayed, slowed by the initial confusion. Ellie pretends not to balk.

It’s ironic, she thinks, how there is so much of Joel in him. Too much of what he used to be. When his face hardens at her words, Ellie recognizes the look as much as she fears it, and braces.

But Tommy swallows down with concerted effort—he nods. That surprises her. His gaze moves to Dina, softening.

“And the baby. . ?”

“We’re fine.”

That relieves him, at least. He drags himself up to stand, but Ellie catches the stiffness in his left leg before he does, and as soon as he stumbles Ellie already has him by the arm, joints creaking and struggling with one hand until Dina’s there to help with the other.

“Goddammit,” Tommy hisses. They heave him back onto the couch and he groans. There is an uneasy silence; it consumes the tension in the lobby, motes of dust suspended in the stuffy air.

Then Dina says it. “We buried Jesse."

Tommy looks up at her, wordless.

“There’s—nothing left for us here," she says.

And that’s it: Ellie thinks of Jesse at the comic book place, at the bookstore with its wall paintings; at Hillcrest and the smell of rain. She thinks of the eighteen-hour stretches he covered to catch up with her and Dina. She thinks of his parents back in Jackson, of the kindness behind his eyes when she talked to him for the first time at the stables, right after the bonfire. She hears his warm, dopey laugh, and the way he would bend down to scoop up some pebbles on his early morning shift. Something catches in Ellie’s throat then.

She shouldn’t have gone to that fucking aquarium.

Planning was easy enough. They leave the Pinnacle after the storms move over, quietly and without argument. But even after the week they’d spent holed up and recovering from the damage, their collective wounds ultimately slow them down: It takes half a day for them to reach the outskirts of the Central District, and even then they can’t see the bridge connecting Seattle to Mercer Island.

“Light’ll be long gone by the time we get there,” Tommy says. He clutches onto his makeshift crutch, wiping sweat at the brow.

The three of them rest inside a corner store: a coffee shop much bigger than the Ruston’s from downtown. Ellie leans closer to the windows to squint at the road beyond them. Just a little farther ahead she sees a canopy of overgrown trees jutting out from a cluster of establishments. They shouldn’t be a mile away.

“We passed the hospital,” Ellie says slowly, eyes still on the canopy. “And we’re on 17th Avenue?”

Behind her, Dina fumbles for the map. “Um—yes.”

“Any parks?”

"One sec.” Dina checks. A moment passes. “There’s about . . . four: Wisteria, Pratt, Lavizzo, and—another one by Spruce Street.”

Ellie leaves to join her at the table. As described, Dina points to the landmarks.

“Wisteria’s too inward,” Ellie muses.

Tommy blinks at her. “Got somethin’ in mind?"

She looks up. “A plan.”

“A plan,” Tommy says. “Well, in case you forget, there’s a bridge that needs crossin’.”

Ellie straightens, crinkles her eyebrows. “You know we aren't _walking_ to Jackson, right?"

“We can manage."

"No, we can't."  
  
"Now, see—I've mucked out far worse shit back in—"

"You can't go long distances," Ellie says, cutting him off, and when Tommy scoffs, adds: "I can barely shoot. Dina just got off a fever."  
  
"So coddlin' us like this is _your_ _plan?_ " Tommy says.

"I don't think you have a choice."  
  
"Ellie—"  
  
“Listen: When I was looking for Nora, there was this park. Scars were there stationing camps.” She gauges their reaction before continuing. “Remember when we were listening to the radio, something about them bringing horses from their island? Could be some still left here at the camps . . ."

“Horses,” Tommy repeats. “You want to steal—their horses?”

Ellie returns to the window. “We can't get to the bridge before sundown on foot.”

“But we don’t know if they’re even stationed _here_."

“We don’t,” then Ellie motions to the window, guiding her finger up towards the plume of smoke rising from the tree canopy, “but _that’s_ worth a shot.”

“I’m coming with you,” Dina announces.

“Dina. No.”

“Someone needs to watch over your arm and it can’t be you.”

“It can. I can handle it.”

“I doubt that.”

“I _promise_.”

Dina lets out a singular laugh, quick and exasperated. “Right. Because the last time you said that you _twisted_ your arm.”

“I’m—I’m _trying_ here, okay?” Ellie says, almost helplessly. “And maybe it used to be negotiable—but it isn’t. Not anymore. The both of you, the baby—” Ellie stops, notices the way Dina’s lips curl; her eyes soften and she brings them down. “I can’t risk this again, Dina _._ ”

The interior is quiet. Tommy leans on the store counter, the stock of his rifle softly scraping the wood behind him. He looks towards the both of them; scratches the side of his head.

“We'll keep an eye out,” he says. But it’s harder for them, Ellie thinks. She trusts that they can manage.

"I won't take long."

Dina wrings her hands together, acquiescing. Watching her makes Ellie chest ache.

It _is_ a Seraphite camp. The plume of smoke she saw came from the wreck of a burning hut. She can’t see any Scars, so she goes into one of the higher buildings closest the park and scans the area from the top floor. The park is quiet, abandoned: It’s a good omen. That narrows her risks down to traps and infected—the latter she can’t be sure of because there’s only so much she can do with one fucking arm. She has to be careful.

So she sneaks in through the fountain entrance, sticks to the line of benches that cut through the park. Even with everything overgrown and sprawling she can still imagine how this all might have looked. The Seraphites stationed here have cut some several trees down, used the wood for small huts and sapling frames for tanning deerskin and rabbit hide. Now separated from the concrete path, the grass goes up to her waist. She hasn’t recalled Scars using traps before, but she’s not about to—

She steps on something soft. The hair at the back of her neck bristles. She freezes.

A Scar body: shot to death.

Ellie quickens her pace. She looks around her vicinity, notices two more bodies not too far from her—also shot. _Not infected, at least, but most definitely Wolves._ She tries to keep her heartbeat from going up her throat. The fire behind her is still going. How long ago did they ransack this camp?

Then there, just by the gazebo, she spots it: a hitching post.

With two dead horses.

Ellie moves, her breathing is slow and paced. There has to be something, she thinks, but when she nears the post—sees the way the flies have gathered near their wounds, festering—there is a sinking feeling to her stomach.

“C’mon,” Ellie whispers. She stands upright; looks around the park a final time. “Fucking _c’mon_.”

Nothing.

“ _Fuck._ ” She kicks at the dirt. “Fuck!” Her jaw clenches. She doesn’t know why she’s upset, just that she is. She stares bleakly at the ground, her splinted arm itching.

But her eyes widen when she notices the set of grooves indented in the mud.

“Horse tracks,” she whispers.

Her frantic search leads her a block away from the park, not too far from a church and some brazen commercial farm. The mare—a chestnut roan, coat so similar to Maria’s own—grazes on the broken road, the large field cracking it apart. A fallen rider, foot still hanging from the stirrup, drags lazily along.

The image tickles her for some reason. Ellie takes a mental note down to sketch it later.

“God, I really miss Japan,” Dina says. “He's a lot less— _jumpy_.”

Ellie gnaws the inside of her cheek. She helps Dina down first. Then the both of them with Tommy. They groan in relief, crack their backs, then they ask her if she’s been holding up alright (She is. Relatively). The sun is down but they’ve crossed in time—though there’s not much cause to celebrate: Had they been healthier they should have been a couple of miles short of Fall City. Instead they’d passed through the overgrown hedges in McGilvra; stopped just in front of a tavern called Roanoke Inn: a place Dina and Ellie had camped in en route to Seattle.

Ellie hitches the mare— _Dina named her_ Mercedes _, and for once Ellie actually empathizes with the disgust Joel threw at her over Callus—_ at the tavern's front, leaving her some water. Ellie and Dina check the tavern's perimeter, and then the interior, before discovering that the lodging room behind the bar is as they had left it. Ellie announces she’ll make do with the floor, leaving the bed for them before they can even begin to argue with her.

When they’ve finally gone to sleep, it doesn’t actually hit her that it’s the first time she's opened her journal since the fight at the Pinnacle. Sketching’s a lot harder with her splinted arm, but it’s healed enough to allow her the mobility to _try_.

She lights up the old oil lamp, not too bright for Tommy and Dina to stir. Ellie crowds to sit against the bed’s footboard, draws her legs up close so she can place her journal on them. She sketches Mercedes from behind; draws the road below her like an open invitation. As she finishes, she pauses to turn to the previous pages; stares pointedly at her entries, at the drifting sketches of Joel and his blacked-out eyes. Something in her sours.

“You okay down there?”

Her voice isn’t supposed to make Ellie jump but it does. She turns to look, sees Dina glancing down with her messy bedhead.

“Oh — I can turn the light down if—”

“No. It’s fine,” Dina says. Then, after a pause: “Can I . . . sit with you?”

Ellie thinks on that. “Okay.”

She sets the journal down, scoots a little to the left. Dina tosses her legs over the footboard and drags herself down—slowly, and Ellie watches, ready to shoot out a hand—until Dina ends up sitting on the floor with her.

“Nice landing,” Ellie manages to say, one end of her mouth curled.

“Pffft. Of course.”

If it weren’t for Tommy’s snores they’d be dealing with the silence. Ellie doesn’t know which she’d have more, but having Dina sitting next to her feels— _nice_. She allows herself that, at least. So she lets it blanket over them, soaking in the familiarity.

She turns to Dina.

"How are you feeling?"

"Pretty okay. You?"

"I'm good, yeah," Ellie says. “So, um—Did you wanna . . . talk?”

She sees the way the lines of Dina’s neck move whenever she swallows down her nervousness; finds it funny how she used to think of Dina as brash and unafraid.

“I dunno . . . do you?”

Ellie thinks of her bite. Of the aquarium. Of Jesse. Ellie fidgets with her hands, moves one gently across the underside of her splint.

“There’s a lot to unpack.”

“Then we don’t talk," she says. Ellie hates how she makes it sound so easy. Dina bumps her shoulder against hers. “'Sides, I don’t mind just sitting here.”

"Cool. I'll take the bed, then."

“Shut it.”

Ellie snorts; blushes when Dina places her head on the crook of her neck.

“So,” Dina starts, “you sleeping any better?”

The question bristles her. Ellie draws herself up.

“No. Not really.”

Dina lifts her head up in concern.

“I’m fine, I just—” Ellie breathes. “The dreams.”

She supposes it was simpler to manage, then—when she was just carving her way through the winding landscape across Seattle, focusing on a singular goal . . . but now she can’t stop picturing Dina, unconscious, with a knife pressed against her throat. Of Owen’s burning eyes, turning blank, his last words reduced to some gurgle in her ears. Of Mel.

“There’s actually, uh,” Ellie says, very quietly. Then, after a long, palpable moment: “There's something that I . . .”  
  
She can feel Dina's eyes burning into her. There's a low ringing in her ears. The same ringing at the basement, at the hospital corridor, all blood and the smell of it, just exacerbated everywhere.  
  
"I . . ." Her mouth goes dry.

“It's okay,” Dina says. She has a hand on her back, moving it back and forth in calming waves, though it does nothing to assuage her.

Ellie coughs; gathers herself—poorly, because the images keep threatening to overflow—with her clenched hands, recalls each moment as she’s lived it: Nora’s wide eyes permanently fixated towards the ceiling; the strangled grief in Mel’s cries right before Ellie sinks her knife into her throat, the threat of bile rising to her chest; the life so quickly and easily disappearing from Jesse's face, his eyes—

“I’m sorry,” Ellie chokes out. “I just want you to know that I’m really _fucking_ sorry. God. I’m just—sorry that I dragged us here. Because we shouldn’t have left. We shouldn’t have gone to Seattle.” She feels Dina’s gaze on her, watchful, and she doesn’t know what to do. She feels freakish, monstrous. “We should have just fucking— _stayed._ And maybe Jesse would have still been here, maybe we wouldn’t be _so fucked up,_ maybe—”

“Hey.”

Dina has her face cradled, Ellie doesn’t even realize.

“None of this is your fault,” she says.

“But it _is_."

"Ellie—"

"I just—I can’t forgive myself." Ellie shakes her head. "I can't. I can't."

“You can.”

Something in Ellie stutters. “You don't know that. You don't know the kind of person I am.”

But Dina doesn’t push; doesn’t say anything else. She pulls Ellie closer, thumbs away the twin trails of tears streaming down her face. “I’ve always known who you are,” Dina tells her, and Ellie crumbles into her; feeds into her warmth, right into the safety of her arms, and breaks.

_I see him in the wrong places again_

_His photo hangs crooked on the wall_

_I hear his ~~screams~~ voice in my dreams_

_The smell of rust, a ~~bloody~~ shaking hand_

_In the darkness he calls to me_

_~~I need~~ _

_~~I want~~ _

_I don’t want to find meaning in this._

**Author's Note:**

> i finished part II and i'm very unstable and i love ellie and dina so!!! fucking much
> 
> ellie's end poem is heavily drawn from awfulmachination's 'allegory of nothing.' thank you so much for reading! i'm triple-phoenix on tumblr if you'd like to drop a line ❤


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